Every bird, animal, tree, mountain and star, each tiny worm, has a lesson for you, if you have but the will and the thirst to learn. These make the world a veritable University for you; it is a Gurukul where you are a pupil from birth to death. For example, the tree can teach you forbearance and tolerance. It offers shade to all, irrespective of age, gender, religion, nationality or economic status. It helps with fruit and shade to even the foe who lays his axe on its trunk! The sea rolls and surges in great joy on a full moon; it only knows the fullness of happy contentment. The Sun may lift clouds of vapour from it; the Sea does not whimper. Rain may fill its coffers with the rich riverine tribute; it does not exult. It teaches you equanimity. Watch the waves rolling one behind the other towards the shore bringing bits of flotsam and jetsam, bottles and twigs, to be deposited on land. There is a constant struggle, a laudable Sadhana, to maintain itself clean - which you can well adopt.

- Divine Discourse, Jul 26, 1972.